Page 6-Friday, July 21, 1978-The Michigan Daily
If Y
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One-act plays: O
By OWEN GLEIBERMAN (he's losing control) and his life (ditto).
anks 3 Detroit 0 Top of the Seven- This is baseball as metaphor, and the
my indication, then baseball and playwright, Jonathan Reynolds, very
e don't mix. In fact, together they likely enjoys thinking of life as one
do much of anything. When the giant ballgame. Yanks 3 Detroit 0 offers
n opens on the play, the first of the same pedestrian wisdom one might
ne-acts being presented by the encounter during a coach's pep talk. It
is not so much a play as an hour-long
gimmick, amusing for five minutes un-
til itsbegins to collape under the weight
o tts6 of its static limitations.
THE REAL culprit in this unfathomably
r monotonous production is its star, Greg
Rosenberg. Much of the problem may
be chalked up to his voice, which
Ensemble through Saturday at sustains a tone somewhere between a
ng Auditorium, Yankee pitcher whine and a shriek. When he really got
Ironkowski (Greg Rosenberg) is going he sounded like a castrati auc-
pitces ito he wngs opeing tioneer, emitting a never-ending stream
(pitches into the wings, opening of squeaky vocalizations that
enth inning on an as-yet perfect ofsuay vclztos ta
Thentiningon an ns-yet peret threatened to give new meaning to the
The entire play ensues during word "grating." And under the largely
ing, in which we are treated to a inept direction of B. David Green,
ing, occasionally-interrupted Rosenberg's naturally frenetic delivery
gue by Duke, stalking around on had no control. Instead of opening with
cher's mound, frothing at the some semblance of a laid-back tem-
and wailing about nsapiching
ne afjj
perment to establish th
baseball atmosphere, Rosenb
ded like a panicked high schoo
the word go, his maniacal ton
overshadowing everything
saying.
Through the contrived v
vocalized memory ("Gee, I r
back in '62... "), we discove
36, hit the pinnacle of his suc
with appearances on Carson a
vanks3etroit
Top of the Seventh
By Jonathan Reynolds
Duke Bronkowski. Greg
Beanie Maligma .. .. Dan
Old Salt ...,................ Jam esI
Lucky Johnson .........'
Lincol Lewis III . .. . ginaldC
Donna Luna Donna ..............Lor
Guido Mancini................... Ja
Brick Brock ...........,... ...... Jer
SexualPerversity
In Chicago
By David Mamet
Bernard Litko.............Michae
DanShapiro...................Rober
Deborah Soloman .......... J
JoanWbbe ..r . . ... La
B. David Green, director; Danial K
producer anddesigner; Jill Bowers,c
coordinator; william Craven,echnica
Presented by the
Actor's Ensemble
GEORGE C. SCOTT in
ISLANDS IN
THE STREAK
This beautifully photographe
portrays the relationship.betw
Hemingwayesque character{
and his three sons. Scott's be
since PATTON. Also starringI
HEMMINGS and CLAIRE BLOC
this solid version of Papa's losti
SAT: PINK FLAMING
CINEMA GUIL
OLD ARCH. AuD.
TONIGHT AT 7:30 & 9:3
$1.50
one awful
e proper sive womanizing, and is now
erg soun- desperately struggling to regain his
i kid from position at the top. He depends on his
te of voice one good pitch, the slider, to carry him
he was through to a perfect game, and on his
"groupie in Texas" (Lori Jacobson) for
ehicle of life-sustaining comfort and affection.
emember THE IDEA OF a one-inning play cer-
tr Duke is tainly sounds like fun, but this one has
cess in '65 no genuine drama, only the hero's
nd exten- static co:n templation of his quickly
tiresome situation. An otherwise
wearing idea, is it granted relief by the
brief interruptions of Yankee's coach, a
rasping workaday geezer named Old
Rosenberg Salt (James Konwinski), whose conver-
delKantner sation is a rambling garble of clubhouse
Konwinski cliches. The characterization was an
Kirk Haas appropriate satire on all those Casey
Cathey, Jr.
i Jacobson Stengel-type old-coaches-that-never-
y Thornhill die, and Konwinski should be blessed
ry Kantner for breathing some good-natured life in-
to the play. Yanks 3 Detroit 0 is a one-
idea play in the very worst sense, and it
wastes no time striking out.
David Mamet's Sexual Perversity In
lA. Cooper Chicago, the second of two plays, is a
rtMeiksins lively series of vignettes concerning
cony Klion four wayward characters moving
within a sketchy narrative on the theme
antner, of contemporary sexual mores. The
costume dialogue is street-wise, deliberately ob-
ladicC:o' scene (one character manages to say
"fuck" every three words), and often
quite humorous. The story, comprised
of short sketches, takes Dan Shapiro
(Robert Meiksins) and Deborah
1976 Soloman (Jenny Klion) through a very
"modern" affair, amidst the
sometimes helpful, sometimes destruc-
tive consolations of friends Bernard
A Litko (Michael Cooper) and Joan Web-
d film ber (Laura Hitt).
een a PART OF the joke comes from Ma-
(Scott) met's humorous fascination with the jar-
st role gon of modern mating. His ear for dialogue
DAVID is sharp, and he knows how to milk
OM in vulgarity for laughs. Structurally, the
novel, play fares less well. Many of the scenes
are barely thirty seconds long, and are
os cut off immediately upon reaching an
emotional peak or a telling line. The
resolutions feel right, but the play often
D seeme platitudinous by its insistance on
putting forth little lessons instead of
' simply letting the action speak for it-
self.
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